


just like magic

by prithivas



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Yuriashe, F/F, Halloween, background marihilda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:26:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27304834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prithivas/pseuds/prithivas
Summary: Two figures came into view, and Annette recognised one of them immediately - Claude was standing there, dressed up as a vampire. She could see the sharp fangs poking out of his half-open mouth. “Oh, Annette!”And the person next to him was… well, she was the person Annette was looking for.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Lysithea von Ordelia
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29
Collections: Fodlan Frights Halloween Exchange 2020





	just like magic

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is a gift to [@snowysatoru](http://twitter.com/snowysatoru) on Twitter for the Fodlan Frights Halloween Exchange! I hope you enjoy it!

The thing was; when it came to doing others’ makeup, Annette could be considered good at it, though somehow she was absolutely _horrible_ at doing her own. Yet that didn’t stop her from attempting-

“What have you done to your face?”

...and failing to do it, every single time.

“Look,” she exclaimed while pointing her mascara at Hilda, who stood by the door frame with a facemask on, “I thought I’d just go with something _fun,_ you know? Something simple and easy to do, and it wasn’t going too bad at first! Then… uh.”

Yesterday they had agreed on leaving for the Halloween party at nine, knowing full well they wouldn’t start getting ready any earlier than that. Now it was 8:40 and as expected neither of them was ready. They had spent the past 30 minutes watching a reality TV show together instead of showing any effort of actually getting ready. Maybe the others were right to call them the _disaster duo._

Hilda shook her head. “You’re such a lost cause… My _poor_ eyes!”

“Stop being mean,” Annette huffed and turned her attention back to the mirror; she hadn’t done _that_ bad of a job, really, it was just a tad too… colourful. “I can’t believe you’re the one going as an angel instead of Marianne, when you’re the spawn of the devil!”

“I already wore the devil costume back in freshman year.” She grabbed a tissue and dampened it with makeup remover. “Anyways, she was quite enthusiastic about being the devil, you know? And she looks great in red, so it’s a win for everyone! Now turn your mess of a face to me.”

She complied and let all of her hard work get wiped off her face. “Thank you. I didn’t want to bother you, though-”

“I’d be far less bothered if you looked good,” she cut Annette off. “What were you even going for exactly? I can’t tell with the way you did it.”

“You know, fairy dust. Colourful sparkles, paw-wow, whoosh, things like that!”

Hilda stopped wiping. “Right. How about you tell me what your costume is?”

“Nope! You still can’t see it, not until the last minute.”

“Then how am I supposed to do your make-up?” She opened her mouth to argue, but Hilda shushed her again. “Look, okay, I don’t have to see it, just- give me something to work with.”

Annette thought how she could explain it in the simplest way possible. “It’s pink - I mean, it’s mostly a _calmer_ tone of pink, then hot pink as an accent colour, and a lighter tone too... But it’s pink, and I mean _very_ pink, you know? Oh! There’s a small yellow part, too, but I don’t think-”

Hilda took a step back and stopped wiping. “Hold on a second, I need to wipe the mouth area too. Also, we’re definitely skipping yellow.”

“Right!” She waited a few more seconds before Hilda gave her a thumbs up to continue talking. “Okay, I wanted to draw some red hearts right at the end of my, um- you know, on the sides of my eyes. I thought that would be cute, but I don’t want to overdo it with symbols and all the woobly-doobly stuff, because I bought a very _,_ and I mean _very_ glittery blush and I really want to use it!”

“Got it,” Hilda said while evaluating her products. “Now grab a chair and bring it here, will you? I want to work my magic on you.”

Hilda may not have been the best roommate in terms of productivity, or responsibility of any kind, but she was a good friend and fun to be around. They had been rooming since the beginning of Annette’s first year and despite the challenges, she probably wouldn’t want anyone else as her roommate. There had been way too many instances where Hilda was there for her, which to be honest was embarrassing to think about, and Annette was grateful for that.

They were just way too chaotic, both of them, and it was a miracle that they had managed to stay alive throughout their time together. 

“Okay, check in. How does this look?”

Annette briefly opened her eyes and grinned at her reflection, eyes shimmering. “Oh. _Oh!_ This is _so_ perfect! The hearts look adorable, wow…”

“Great! I think I’ll go grab one of my lip glosses to finish,” she winked and left the bathroom. 

Annette took the opportunity to check the time: ten minutes until nine. Neither of them had their costumes on, and though she didn’t know about Hilda, it was going to take her quite some time to complete her own outfit. Now that she thought about it, she probably needed Hilda’s help with that too.

They were definitely not going to make it on time.

“It’s only 9:37,” Hilda hummed, putting her phone back in her purse. “See? We’re just _fashionably_ late.”

Surprisingly, they had made it there faster than Annette had thought they would - it was thanks to the driver finding a shortcut, really. It was impressive that they even managed to leave; they’d both struggled with their costumes way more than they should have, and at one point Annette had almost decided to just not go to the party simply out of frustration. Almost. 

Next to her, Hilda looked quite literally _gorgeous._ She had a glittery halo and wings, and though her dress was easier on the eyes, it was still over to top with its small details, like the many small, dysfunctional zippers at the front. She actually did look like a high fashion angel; whereas Annette probably looked like a clown next to her, with her big hat, big gloves, big boots - big everything really.

Though that was what she had in mind from the beginning - to look cute and silly. She’d tried so hard to find a “decent” costume last year and hadn’t enjoyed the party at all, so she would go as something that she would enjoy - a magical girl.

“Don’t tell me you’re gonna act like you planned this,” Annette rolled her eyes at her.

Hilda shrugged dismissively as she pulled her towards the entrance. “I mean, not really. I just knew it would’ve worked out in the end!”

“Oh, _sure_ you did!” 

It already looked quite chaotic inside, which probably shouldn’t have been _that_ surprising. The music wasn’t that loud, thankfully, but that for some reason didn’t stop people from talking as loud as possible - her ears were starting to hurt already. She took a moment to appreciate the thorough decoration, as it was clear that there was a lot of effort involved. ( _Whose house was this again?_ ) 

“Alrigtie then, I’m off to find Mari!” Hilda suddenly announced, as loud as the others were.

“Wait, al-”, but before she could even finish it, she let go of her hand and got lost in the crowd, leaving Annette all alone. “...ready. Okay, I see.”

There were more people here than Annette had expected. She did see a lot of familiar faces but generally, it was quite hard to make out who was who, especially from a distance. For example, the skeleton approaching her didn’t look familiar - nor friendly.

Annette took a step back when the skeleton waved at her. She had to look behind her back to see if they were really greeting her, but it seemed-

“Hey, Ann!” She turned her head back around as she let out a loud shriek, causing the skeleton to jump. “Woah, are you okay?”

Oh. It was a familiar voice, a soft and calm one. “Ashe?”

He blinked a couple of times. “Yeah?”

“Jeez- I didn’t recognise you!” She let out an awkward laugh. “Gosh, I’m sorry about that...”

Ashe laughed goodheartedly in return. “Don’t worry, you’re not the only one. I think Yuri did _too_ much of a good job with the makeup.”

“Yeah, wow, you look wonderful! Is he around?” Annette looked around, but it was hard to see anything past 2 feet. It’s not like she would recognise him even if she _did_ see him, anyway.

“He should be in the kitchen,” he shrugged, “said something about finding something proper to drink. The punch looked, uh, a little too interesting.”

Annette made a face. “Oh boy.”

“By the way, your costume is from Ojamajo Doremi, right?”

The fact that Ashe knew about which show it was from wasn’t surprising, given his knowledge on anime, but it excited Annette nevertheless. “Yep! It was _so_ hard to find, but! Here it is!”

“It looks good! Um…” he scratched his cheek, looking around. “Actually, I think I… saw someone who wore the same costume?”

Annette shut her mouth and stared at his face as his eyes kept wandering around. “What.”

“Uh, not the same? It was a different colour. Maybe. I’m not exactly sure, I just-”

“When?” Annette asked, also looking around. “I don’t see anyone.”

It made her feel pretty weird, to be honest. When she’d decided to go as a magical girl to the party, she’d prepared herself for weird looks she could, would, _was_ receiving- she was slowly getting better at caring less about what people thought of her. That was to be expected, and she was okay-ish about it. What she _hadn’t_ been prepared for was… this.

Everyone around them were really extravagant and colourful, but she couldn’t see anyone with a big hat that resembled her own. Was it really the exact same, or not?

“What colour was it?”

“Pur… ple,” Ashe answered, slowly. “Like Onpu’s. B-but maybe I’m wrong, uh, it just looked similar! You know? That must be-”

Annette turned back to him and waved curtly. “See you later, Ashe! Please say hi to Yuri for me, will you? Bye! Kisses!” She blew him a kiss and left him, before he could even open his mouth.

It was more likely that Ashe was wrong about the costume than anything, right? There was no way someone was wearing the same costume as her, right in that moment. At the same party. What even were the chances of that, especially considering it had taken so long for her to find her costume? 

Looking around her, her stomach felt queasy. Was she disappointed? No, that wasn’t what. Bothered? Probably. It just felt… weird? Even that was too broad to explain how she felt, really, but there was no other word that came to her mind. After all, _what were the fucking chances?_

She decided to go upstairs, not being able to move properly with all the people around her. Maybe she could find the person there, or maybe she could just go to the bathroom for a second.

“You just seem like you’re not having fun! That’s all I’m saying.”

Annette slowed down as she heard the footsteps coming down and stopped right before the stairs, unsure of what to do. The voice was somewhat familiar but she couldn’t really figure out who it belonged to because of all the noise. 

“Goodness, you are _so_ annoying!”

The other voice, however, was not familiar at all.

“Hey, don’t be like-” Two figures came into view, and Annette recognised one of them immediately - Claude was standing there, dressed up as a vampire. She could see the sharp fangs poking out of his half-open mouth. “Oh, Annette!”

And the person next to him was… well, she was the person Annette was looking for.

The two of them stared at each other, completely frozen. Ashe really was right, after all; the girl in front of her wore the exact same outfit as her, except it was purple. The big hat, big gloves, big boots - it was all the same. She didn’t have any make-up on but Annette noticed that her eyes were unnaturally bright and edging on pink.

Neither of them dared open their mouths. She saw Claude’s eyebrows knit from the corner of her eye, before he started, “Hold on-”

“Excuse me,” the girl mumbled and hurriedly went past Annette - she couldn’t even bring herself to turn around and watch her leave, still in shock. She had to take a moment to collect herself.

“And she’s gone... of course.” Claude was looking past Annette, probably to see where the girl was going. “So, Annette! Is something going on here?”

Annette blinked a couple times before she looked at Claude. “Um.”

“Interesting response,” he scratched his chin. “Well, we should get the greetings out of the way first, right? Hello, happy halloween, how are you?”

Still, Annette was unable to think of something comprehensible to say. “Yeah, uh, hi.” A beat. “Who was… that?”

“So you don’t know each other?”

Annette wanted to run off and hide somewhere in the woods, where no one would be able to find her. Maybe that would help her feel better. “No, w- we don’t.”

Claude squintized her. “Huh. Alright.” Another beat. “This is kind of funny, actually.”

“ _It’s n_ -” she held herself back from screeching and took a deep breath, feeling her cheeks heat up. “Claude, please, who was that?”

“That’s Lysithea, she’s a freshman,” he looked past her once again. “Okay, _how_ did this even happen?”

Annette huffed. “I can’t believe it.”

“She probably can’t either.” He turned his attention back to her and grinned, showing off his fake teeth. “We probably shouldn’t stand here, come on.”

They started slowly heading towards the end of the hallway, with Annette feeling even more awkward than before. What was she supposed to do? She’d never seen Lysithea around or heard her name before, which somewhat made sense if she was a freshman.

“Lysithea…”

“You know,” Claude started nonchalantly, “she was actually worrying over her costume just a few minutes ago… Said she felt weird about it, for some reason, and I was telling her she looked good. Then,” he looked at Annette’s hat, “you know.”

Annette let out a long sigh. “This is _so_ weird. What am I even supposed to do?”

“Maybe you could talk to her?”

“ _No!_ ”

Claude raised his eyebrows. “Why not? I’m pretty sure she’s feeling just as confused as you are, it’d be good for both of you.”

That was probably true, she must have been taken aback when she saw Annette as well. “What would I even say to her?”

“I dunno,” Claude shrugged, opening the door to the balcony, “you’ll figure it out.”

Annette gave him a look as they stepped outside. “Not helpful, Claude.”

“Yeah, probably not, but it’s the best advice I have.” He winked at Annette and took a step back. “Then I’ll leave the two of you here! Goodbye!”

“Two of- What?” Claude shrugged once again before he went back inside and closed the door. Annette stared at his back as he turned around, his cape flowing, and grunted. “ _Hey!”_

“Um.” 

Annette shrieked at the sudden noise coming from her right and stumbled backwards. There stood Lysithea, once again, staring at her with wide eyes.

“Ah.”

It was even more awkward now that it was relatively quieter around and they were alone on the small balcony. The moonlight was shining down on them, creating an interesting atmosphere; Lysithea’s eyes were shining even brighter under it. It seemed like they were both afraid of saying anything to one another, or even moving a single inch; the situation at hand was just way too bizarre.

So, Annette finally lost it and started giggling.

It started out slow, quiet but eventually became louder, she had to cover her mouth. Lysithea’s expression shifted into something that could be explained as _confused,_ yet she kept staring at her wordlessly. 

“Sorry,” Annette sniffed, “it’s just… You’re standing here, and it still feels so _weird_ , you know? I still don’t want to believe it.” She took in a deep breath to stop giggling but, for some reason, couldn’t.

To her surprise, Lysithea also let out a chuckle. “Yeah, i-it’s weird.”

“Oh! My name is Annette, by the way,” she suddenly remembered to introduce herself.

This time, it was Lysithea that was giggling. “I know. Claude said your name, remember?”

“Oh,” Annette repeated dumbly. They both started laughing, and it didn’t feel as awkward as before anymore. “Geez, I’m a mess…”

The other girl had surprisingly managed to collect herself unlike Annette, who was trying her best not to keep laughing. “I’m Lysithea. It’s… nice to meet you?”

That cracked her once again and she started laughing even harder, which caused Lysithea to take a step back this time. “ _Sorry_ ,” she managed to say in between laughter. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know why I’m laughing - oh, you must think I’m a weirdo.”

“Um,” she cocked her head, “not really..?”

“It’s nice to meet you too! Really!” Annette looked around them and saw the bench next to the door inside. “How about we sit down?”

So they did, leaving a huge gap in between, and fell silent once again - though it was more bearable this time. Annette was feeling better about the entire thing now, the stress was almost entirely gone. Lysithea seemed to be in the same situation as well, from the looks of it.

“Sorry about all of that again,” she turned to Lysithea’s direction. “Would it be weird for me to say I like your costume? I think it looks really good on you!”

Lysithea opened her mouth, then shut it, then opened it again. “You know, I’m starting to feel like you aren’t very confident in yourself.” Annette froze, taken aback by the statement. “I don’t mean to be rude,” she continued hurriedly, waving a hand. “You just seem like a really nice person, I don’t understand why anyone would think you’re weird.”

“Um,” Annette blinked a couple times. She didn’t know what to say to that, because people _did_ think she was weird; it was just a fact that she was aware of. Was Lysithea trying to be nice? It was a little hard to tell. “Thank you?”

“You’re welcome,” she nodded. “I… really like your costume too. And the little hearts, they're a nice touch.”

Annette suddenly realised- “Wait! So you’ve also watched Doremi, right?”

“Yes, most of it at least. I watch a lot of anime in general.”

That really excited Annette. “Oh my god, _me too!_ I was especially keeping up with a _lot_ of them back in high school, but haven’t had the time to start anything new recently, and to be honest none of the new releases really caught my attention, you know? But I still have a _lot_ on my watch list that I just haven’t been able to get to, most of them are _really_ old I think - I should probably look through it again sometime soon, _oh_! We could watch something together!”

Lysithea was staring at her with wide eyes _again._ “O-okay?”

“Wait, really?” That was quick.

“I mean, uh, maybe?” Lysithea backtracked. “It… depends. I can be picky when it comes to content I consume..”

Annette couldn’t help but smile at that. “That’s completely fine! Oh, this is great, Hilda _never_ watches anything other than those funky TLC shows and Ashe has already seen _everything_ on this planet _-_ I don’t know how he does it. Anyways, this is _wonderful!_ ”

Lysithea was smiling now too. “Hold on, I didn’t-”

“I know, I know, I just got excited.” She tried to calm herself down before starting to speak again. Lysithea was patiently waiting. “Sorry about that, um, we can talk about it later.”

“Later?”

Annette blinked. “Oh, right - can I have your number?”

“Sure! But um,” she pointed at her outfit, “I don’t have my phone with me.”

“Oh, I see. Mine is inside my left boot!”

“Your what?”

Annette reached into her huge boots and took out her phone. “It was hitting my ankle the entire time I was walking - I just didn’t know where else to put it. And I hate carrying purses around, so...” 

Lysithea chuckled in disbelief after a small pause. “Yeah... Uh, me too.”

“You know, I really won’t hate you if you call me weird,” Annette giggled. “It’s fine! I promise!”

“Weird has too many negative connotations,” she explained, grabbing Annette’s phone to put her number in. She was still smiling. “There’s nothing about you that could be considered negative even in the slightest. It just caught me off guard, that’s it.”

Annette took a second to digest the words. This time Lysithea really was complimenting her, there was no doubt about it. She was probably blushing already. “Ah… Thank you! That’s nice to hear.”

Lysithea looked up from the phone screen for a millisecond. “Y-yeah, don’t mention it.”

She waited for her to give her the phone back, and when she did - “Ordelia? Is that your surname?” Lysithea nodded sheepishly. “Hm… I like it, but this is too formal…” Annette changed the name to ‘Lysie’ with a bunch of purple hearts, and showed it to Lysithea.

“ _Lysie?_ ” she asked - her voice was higher than before.

“Yeah, I think it sounds cute! What do you think?”

Lysithea was looking down at her feet. “I wasn’t expecting to be given a nickname 10 minutes after meeting someone.” She looked at the screen once again. “I-I guess it’s cute…”

“Great!” Annette clapped her hands, before realising Lysithea looked a little squeamish. “ Do you wanna head back inside? It’s pretty cold out here.”

“Definitely,” Lysithea nodded as she slowly got up and cleared her throat. “Let’s go inside.” 

Annette got on her feet and smiled at Lysithea before grabbing her hand. “Okie! You know, it still feels surreal that we’re matching... Others are gonna think we’re dating or something.”

Lysithea looked down at their interlocked hands. “Ah.”

“Oh! Am I coming off too strong? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable…” Lysithea just shook her head, without saying anything. “It’s just… I don’t like being alone at a party, you know? Hilda ditched me right when we got here,” she groaned. “She’s my roommate by the way, and the world's _laziest_ person. I almost set our room on fire once and she just sat there, doing _nothing_ -”

"You almost _what?_ ”

Annette laughed while she opened the door and pulled Lysithea inside. “It’s a _long_ story, but basically I was trying to make dinner and suddenly-”

As she kept talking and as they spent more time together, she found herself feeling more comfortable in Lysithea’s presence. In the end, she was glad to have met her.

**Author's Note:**

> [my twitter](http://twitter.com/edlethea)


End file.
